Saturday, 27 June 2009

Empty Chair

In the deepening gloom of an empty room sat a solitary and unoccupied chair, not that it was necessarily gloomy in the inner sense; it was just growing darker, and the gloom or otherwise all depends on one's attitude to darkness. Is darkness intrinsically gloomy, requires light to offset its morose nature, or is it the necessity for light itself that is gloomy or depressing? Against nature so to speak.So in the middle of this room sat this chair atop which sat noone. But what is a seat atop which sits no sitter? Humiliation! Though mightn't that be a bit strong, hysterical even? Granted, to some slavish champion of the work ethic everything justifies itself by its utility, and so an unoccupied chair is a mockery of human progress and endeavour, and while, yes, it might be unreasonable to expect everything to be in a state of permanent Darwinian, Protestant efficiency, or some such, still even if this impossibility is reluctantly allowed, that doesn't mean one should have to wallow in these victories for sloth, accidental or not, such as are embodied in unoccupied solitary chairs. One should simply avert one's gaze from the offending article, even if its offence is in all apparent innocence. But what, our Calvinist tinged observer might remark, is innocence?